Daniel Farrell

I’ll be heading up to DC(well, Maryland side) for the Ecclesia National Gathering tomorrow morning with Brent and Eric. I’m looking forward to connecting/re-connecting with some awesome people and dreaming some. Also we get to hear from/hang out with Alan Hirsch and David Fitch. Don’t know how much I’ll be online, but you can expect to hear at least the highlights sometime.

It’s kind of cool to me that Time Magazine would do an interview with N.T. Wright about our understanding of heaven(ht: Brent). I’ve been a proponent of this type of thinking(with slight modification) for a number of years now.

I feel like it’s a much more hopeful view of the world. It challenges the escapism of the left behind view. The implications are that the physical things of this world matter. It matters if we care about the environment. It matters if we care about our bodies. Life matters, not just life after death.

I’ve seen just how much us christians buy into the heaven thing as we’ve experienced some tragic deaths over the past few years. It’s amazing to me how many times well meaning people have thrown the line “at least they are in heaven now” or something like that at us to tell us that it’s okay that Jack or Jarrett are not here anymore. I know they are trying to comfort us and make us feel like it’s alright, but for the most part it’s very insulting. Even more insulting, and even disgusting(it turns my stomach), is the “God took them” line that some people throw out there. No, it’s not alright! No, God did not “take” them. A tumor and a mentally disturbed college student took them. It’s tragic and awful and not as God intended the world to be! It makes me want to scream! But, at the same time, I do believe that at the resurrection they will be restored to their whole selves. They are not some spirit or ghost now, they are sleeping and waiting to be restored. Not restored to some other-worldly fantasy life in the clouds, but real life. That to me is hope.

I’m speaking at church tomorrow. Which means it’s Saturday night and I’m at home working on the talk while my wife is out having fun with some friends. I’ll be talking about the mission of God and our part in it. It’s a topic that I really love, so hopefully it goes off well. I think I’ll turn it into an article as well and post it somewhere online if anyone wants to see it.

Update: It went pretty well. Nerves always are there, but I definitely felt more comfortable talking than I did last time I did this. My biggest thing is I feel like I need to slow down when I’m talking. I kept telling myself in my head to slow down… but I never really did slow down. Oh well. Here is the talk written up. It’s literally about 98% of what I actually said, I just did some slight improvs from it: Jan 13th Talk notes

Brent and i went on our daytrip to Harrisonburg today. We got to meet a lot of people who are a part of Virginia Mennonite Missions, the Virginia Mennonite Conference, Eastern Mennonite Seminary and a couple of church plants(The Table(Hi Gerald!) and The Early Church/Our Community Place). It was a very good time of connecting with people and getting a feel for everything. We also got to have a great lunch at The Little Grill Collective. I’m not sure if Ed reads this, but if you do, thanks Ed for making it a great visit!

We got to meet a lot of people and I’m still trying to sort out in my head who everyone was, but we enjoyed our time with each person. I’m looking forward to connecting with everyone again sometime.

I feel that I, like many 20-30′s christians, have been on a quest to find a church tradition where I fit in. A few people I respect have found their home in the Catholic Church. Others have gone back to the traditions they were brought up in. I think I have found a home in the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition. They have a focus on Jesus, simple living, living out our faith and community. They also care about being missional(and here), caring for the environment, hospitality, peace, justice and fair trade. That is pretty much me. Plus, while there is an emphasis on holiness there aren’t a bunch of rules codifying details.

I’m been in touch for a while with the Virginia Mennonite Conference of the Mennonite Church USA. There was talk about planting a church with them before we connected with The Well. Since then we’ve kept in touch and explored if that would be a good connection. We are still exploring that(Brent and I will be going to Harrisonburg for the day on Wednesday) but I personally am sold on the tradition.